Cruit'n Finger of Doom

From End-Zone To End-Goal: Why Alexander City Needs Championship Football

Cruit'n Finger of Doom is a video content brand that transforms American Football video game gameplay into a narrative experience.

For this on-going project I have assumed the responsibility for every aspect of the content creation process. These include: Video Capture, Voice Recording, Video Editing, Sound Design, Thumbnail Design, Storyboarding, and Video game modding.

"Oops! All Walkons" is the flagship series of this channel. It chronicles the fictitious university, Alabama Tech, and its journey of starting a brand new football program, its quest to become a dominant football power, and its initial roster of scrubs.

Channel Inspiration and Content Goals

As a long-time football fan and video game enthusiast I was devastated when Electronic Arts cancelled the NCAA Football series in 2013. The game's popularity would continue to thrive especially on YouTube with the "Dynasty Rebuild" and "Team Builder Dynasty" genre. The community would take another blow in 2018 when EA announced the "sun-setting" and eventual shutdown of the NCAA Football 14 servers. Despite the withdrawal of official support, there arose a community of "modders" who have worked to keep the game up-to-date and modernized to the best of the aged game's abilities. When I discovered the "College Football Revamped" community, my imagination was exposed to a world of content possibilities.

Inspired by creators such as Not The Expert, NitroDrive, and Bordeaux, I knew that I wanted to create a "Dynasty Mode" based series. But how could I differentiate myself in such a niche environment? My solution to this question was to focus on telling a story. I would seek to create a dynamic narrative, letting the wins and losses in the game affect the next episode.

I set multiple goals for this project: The first and most import goal was to simply express an artistic vision; secondly, to strengthen my skills with SEO; and thirdly to build upon portfolio and potentially entice future collaborators/employers.

The name Cruit'n Finger of Doom is derived from a meme about the secret mechanisms and dog-whistles of college football recruiting. On social media, if a photo gets posted of a coach and a recruit, look for the coach's hand. If he's pointing at the recruit, then he's a lock to commit to your school. The "Crootin Finger" meme especially caught fire amongst the Auburn University fanbase during the 2021 and 2022 football seasons and was quickly adopted by Auburn's social media team. I loved it and decided to build my football content brand around this imagery.

So, What's With The Crazy Name?

Giving Them The Finger

In today's digital age, having an identifiable brand on YouTube is more crucial than ever. With millions of videos being uploaded every day, it is easy for content to get lost in the sea of videos. A strong and recognizable brand not only sets the channel apart from the competition, but it also helps to build trust and credibility with its audience. An identifiable brand on YouTube allows viewers to easily recognize and remember my content, making them more likely to subscribe and engage with my videos.

Cruit'n Finger of Doom's visual identity is composed of two key elements: The "Pointing Finger" iconography and fiery color pallet.

There are two logos that CFD uses. When designing the logo used for the channel's profile I felt drawn to the "Doom" aspect of the name. I envisioned a bright and intense logo - slighting distorted as though it is withstanding a nuclear blast. The typeface used to create the logo is "Zombie" by Rotodesign. I felt its chaotic, scratchy design further helped sell the volatile aesthetic.

I took a different approach for the channel watermark. Given the diminutive size that the watermark would be scaled down to, I felt that big bold letters would better serve this function than the profile logo. Leaning into the channel's college football based content, it seemed fitting to use a blocky, collegiate typeface ("Freshman" by William Boyd) to create this logo. Obviously, I could not forget to give it the finger.

The Colors of Doom

As previously mentioned, for the brand's color palette I chose to focus on trying to conceptualize "Doom". This was partially influenced by the fact that "Cruit'n" was a bit too complex of a concept to deconstruct and "Finger" is... well... a finger. For single color usage I tend to lean toward Orange as it is inherently vibrant and energetic (from a Color Psychology perspective) but I much prefer whenever possible to employ the full gradient.

Documenting A Dynasty

One of my favorite features of any NCAA Football game was the Team Builder feature. This feature was lost during the server shutdowns, but through the power of Photoshop and a little patience I was able to bring my very own custom team to life for my Dynasty series.

The next challenge in the creative planning stage was to decide on a name and location for this fictitious institution. I felt that, by placing this series in a real location, the story I told would have some verisimilitude. Knowing that I would be committing to several seasons worth of content, I wanted to be passionate (or at least knowledgable) about the location this series would take place in and had initially boiled my options down to somewhere within the state of Alabama. Then it hit me. Why not my old hometown of Alexander City? The immediate thread of narrative ideas convinced me that was the right move going forward.

To come up with a name I did a little bit of research on existing institutions within the state. I noticed that, unlike many other states, Alabama did not have a "Tech" school. It was settled. Now to flesh out The Alabama Institute of Technology.

A Proposition Through Exposition

My Alabama Tech Dynasty series serves as a demonstration through entertainment of how Alexander City could revitalize its dying economy by supporting a championship competing football team. Taking place in an alternate timeline, this version of Alexander City's leadership would have turned to education rather than retiree hospitalities as its new economic driver in the wake of Russell Corporation's departure from the area. By 2022, Alabama Tech would field its first football team composed entirely of walk-ons. The insanely brutal schedule however would prove to be quite lucrative, providing a financial pathway to offering scholarship and improving the student-athletes' training facilities.

The series follows an episodic format. The number of episodes per season roughly correlates to the number of games within each football season. The first episode of Season 1 served to explain the inspiration and purpose for the series as well as introduce viewers to this new team.

It took a couple of episodes to develop a suitable structure but subsequent episodes would begin with a short story beat, either involving fallout from the results of the previous weeks or outlining some drama leading into the upcoming game. I then move into the gameplay section. I record both my gameplay and commentary in real-time so that all of my reactions are genuine and spontaneous. I then follow the gameplay segment with an update on the state of recruiting – commitment battles won or lost, and recruiting strategies for the upcoming week. Lastly, I conclude the video with some final thoughts and a brief look ahead to our next opponent.

Graphic Content Ahead

For me, the most fun I have during any stage of the video production process is when I'm making graphics. The number of illustrations needed per episode can vary based on the narrative that week but I create one meme for the video's cold open and at least one illustration/graphic to accompany the opening narrative.

Initially I had the idea for Alabama Tech's first head coach to also be completely fictional and likely a joke at that. My favorite was Coach Owen Juan whose motto to the team would be something like, "Until you beat your opponent on the field, you're always... Owen Juan" (Bad 0-1 pun). That idea got scrapped as the creative planning process began to gravitate toward real places and names. Instead our first coaching staff would comprise of three real people who could feasibly be looking to start new careers in coaching: Philip Rivers, Tim Tebow, and Takeo Spikes for head coach, offensive coordinator, and defensive coordinator respectively. As I've further honed my image manipulation skills, so also has my ability to bring this fantasy to life.

The Right Man For The Job

In The Cutting Room

Going into this project my experience with video editing was limited, however my experience with music editing and production software did translate into this new endeavor. The first two seasons were edited using Apple's iMovie. During this time I have grown increasingly confident in my skills. Before beginning pre-production on Season 3, I plan to make the upgrade over to a much more powerful program.

Editing has been an iterative process. Episode lengths can vary but my goal is 15 to 18 minutes based on feedback and researching other creators in the genre. With gameplay recordings usually spanning about an hour, the bulk of the editing process goes into hand-picking key moments and impact plays. Over time I’ve learned to be more comfortable with leaving non-engaging content on the cutting room floor.

Attention Seeking

Thumbnails play a crucial role in the success of YouTube videos. With countless videos competing for attention, a visually appealing thumbnail can be the decisive factor that attracts viewers. It serves as a preview, giving potential viewers a glimpse into the video's content and sparking curiosity.

Before designing a thumbnail, I first decide on a title for the video. From there I consider how I can convey the title through image. Over the course of this project, the design process has evolved toward remixing popular memes that fit the tone of the video's title. One significant change I make is to include some sort of Alabama Tech branding (ie football gear, color, etc). There are two recurring elements I use for every thumbnail. The "Oops! All Walkons" logo is a parody of "Cap'n Crunch: Oops! All Berries" and is included to build brand familiarity along with track the episode number. The College Football Revamped logo is included in hopes of attracting viewers who are familiar with or curious of the CFBR mod.

Fruits Of My Labor

Time will tell if my design efforts and process will yield stellar results. Since my first upload as Cruit'n Finger of Doom in May of 2022, The channel has only grown from 9 subscribers to 67 as of September 2023. I'm certain if I maintained a regular release schedule I could build a larger follower base and faster, but it is not within my means. The fanbase that I have grown seems to be engaged and entertained.

My work on this series has also garnered the attention of fellow College Football Revamped enthusiasts. Not everyone in the community has the know-how or patience to implement a custom team into their game and many of these fans have been willing to pay to have one. As a result many creative members like myself have leveraged this skill into a paying gig.

Every Day I'm (Side) Hustle'n

Follow The Journey

To steal a page out of my own video outros... if you've made it this far into the case study, then you are the real MVP. If you have the time I would encourage you to explore my work on this series further over on YouTube as that is the best way to get the full scope of my talent and goals. Also, if you do find any entertainment value from my channel then also consider subscribing to me.

If you would be interested in partnering or collaborating in the future, feel free to reach out to me. I would love to hear from you.